New Mower
by MrZebra on Jun.06, 2011, under The Garden
A shiny new vehicle was delivered to the house a couple of weeks ago: a Mountfield sit-on lawnmower! I’ve used it a couple of times now, and it’s fantastic. Cutting the field with the old lawnmower was a Herculean task involving dragging it backwards around the entire field and restarting it every 50cm because it cut out. With the new mower, the task is reduced from a weekend of hard labour to an hour of sitting down!
I had my worries about a sit-on lawnmower coping with the uneven ground of the field, but it’s performed admirably. It does struggle in some of the larger ruts, but overall it makes and extremely good job of it. The large tyres really help here, as well as cushioning some of the bumps.
The hydrostatic drive is simplicity itself – a single foot pedal allows for both forward and reverse motion. It has a brake too but I’ve never needed to use it, because there is no clutch and so the hydraulic pressure slows it down when you release the accelerator. It was a bit more expensive than the manual drive version, but I think it is worth it. There’s very little to go wrong with a hydrostat, too.
The fields have been a source of worry for me since moving here – I haven’t had the means to keep them under control, but I don’t want to let them go wild. Now I can finally keep them cut, and prevent them from turning to worthless scrub.
June 7th, 2011 on 8:19 am
Wow that looks like a lot of fun – your own red tractor, the stuff of boys dreams.
What are you going to put on the fields now they’re mowed?
June 7th, 2011 on 9:47 am
Well the ultimate plan is to have fruit trees in one field and a pony in the other ^.^
June 7th, 2011 on 12:03 pm
Sounds like a good plan. I had a plot with poor soil that is now a small orchard. The fruit trees were from Aldi @ £4.99 each and all really took off rapidly. I planted 14 trees in total so quite a cheap orchard.
Ponies should keep the grass down a bit. Chap opposite from me had a dwarf shetland pony but it was a bit lonely on its own…
June 7th, 2011 on 3:42 pm
Yes it’s not good at all to have one pony on its own. I don’t have enough land for two really, so I was thinking of getting a sheep for company.
Sounds great that you planted your own fruit trees – what did you do to prepare the land? I’m wondering if I should have it ploughed and harrowed so I have nice level grass between the trees. It’s just a rough field at the moment.
June 7th, 2011 on 4:11 pm
I just mowed and mowed and mowed the cowslip, nettles and other assorted jungle weeds until it became a just grass. Many have commented on how much better it looks than their own lawns at home. I filled in any profound divets to make it easier to mow.
I reckon the chicken crap helps to keep the ground fertile and the soil is clay anyway so brill for trees (keeps the nutrients locked in).
Hows about a couple of goats? Girls will need milking everyday but think about the milk and cheese you could have.
June 8th, 2011 on 6:21 pm
Some goats would be lovely but I hear the can be quite the escape artists!
June 12th, 2011 on 8:46 am
Pygmy goats – that’s what you need. Probably less of a handful and less likely to manage to jump a high fence.